Misstress of Midnight
by Silver Sailor Ganymede
Summary: AU. Hino Hotaru and her sister, Hino Rei, have been forced to flee from their town after accusations of witchcraft and necromancy. Little do they know that things await them that are even worse than the punishment for witchcraft.


Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon.

_**(A.N: Sequel to 'Misstress of Moonlight.)**_

Misstress of Midnight  
By Silver Sailor Ganymede

She stared out of the window of their old, stone cottage, wondering why things had become the way they were. The Moon was distant and cold that November night, and the people of their town had become as such also. The people were to them as the Moon was to the Earth: cold, distant, and aloof. Hotaru didn't fully understand what had happened to merit this recent surge of hatred towards she and her eldar sister, Rei, though Rei certainly seemed to and her contempt for the people of the village grew ever stronger as did theirs for she and Hotaru.

That night Hotaru lay awake, both unable and unwilling to drift into a state of sleep. Only memories and nightmares would come to her then, but when she was awake, she could dream. Dreams of what the future might be like for she and her sister, dreams of how much better things could become. It did not do to dwell on dreams, she knew that much: but dreams and fantasies were all she had left to her now.

Their village had thrived in recent years as its wealth grew and its people prospered, but that had been of little or no help to Hotaru and her sister; healers did not trade overseas for their ancient herbs and cures. Perhaps the worst part of the situation was that their traditional cures were becoming defunct in favour of new-fangled medicenes, ones that Hotaru knew would have no effect on the patient other than further illness or even death.

"Are you still awake, 'Taru?" Rei's voice came from behind the girl, who turned around to see her sister now lying awake, stoking the dying ashes of the fire. She too had had trouble sleeping of late, though she would tell Hotaru nothing as to why.

"I'm awake," Hotaru sighed. "Who can sleep when such worries gnaw at their mind and at their heart?"

"Worries are like the cold," Rei replied, "You will catch your death faster if you stay in them for too long; return to the real world every once in a while, maybe these worries will abate somewhat, don't you think?"

Hotaru shook her head at that and then joined her sister over by what remained of the fire.

"I fear that it is the real world that troubles me most at this moment, sister."

"How so?" Rei asked, frowning in confusion. Then it hit her and she sighed, "Your powers do not come from devils or fearies, no matter what the townsfolk would think."

"Then where do they come from then?" Hotaru whispered, staring at her hands with a look of horror on her young face. "How many would have a power to heal in such a way."

"How would healing be a power from a demon?" Rei shrugged and continued to stoke the embers in the harth. "Our family have been seers and healers for generations beyond memory; it is only natural then, I would suppose, that those practices have genetically bound themselves to us."

"Forsight is a gift from the devil," Hotaru muttered. "What god would allow mortals to see into the future…"

"The gods of old, Hotaru," came her sister's steely reply. "They blessed oracles with the power of foresight, did they not? It is a gift from those gods, the ones of our ancestors; I will not have it said that we are cursed, Hotaru, and you of all people should know better than to even consider such a thing."

Hotaru looked away, ashamed by what she had said without putting the slightest thought into her words.

"And well you should be," Rei snapped as though she had read Hotaru's mind, causing the girl to blush even deeper. The elder's expression then softened somewhat and she sighed, "We should rest. We will not be able to work at all if we foresake sleep entirely."

Hotaru nodded meekly and joined her sister by the remains of the fire, but still she could not sleep. As much as the townsfolk feared her, she feared herself and her own abilities more: and outside shone the Moon, the cold, unforgiving Moon, it's silver rays dancing across the land and lighting up the tear-like snowflakes that had just begun to fall.

* * *

"The child is dead." These were Rei's first words as she entered the cottage and shook the snow from her cloak. Hotaru looked up at her, confusion and fear mingling in her amethyst gaze.

"What?" she asked, fearing what Rei may have meant by those words.

"The Kinomotos," Rei replied. "Their child is dead: the worst part being that this was an only child, and perhaps the last the woman could bear."

"But why do you fear so?"

"They are the most influential family in our region, Hotaru," Rei spat, "and I was the one that delivered that child to them. Its heartbeat was wrong, and indeed I was surprised it survived up until now, but I knew that the boy would not survive this coming winter. It is too harsh for a child like that, there was nothing I could do." Rei laughed, "Belive me, my dear sister, I know that they don't appreciate that. I've heard mutterings from the townsfolk, endured their sneers and stares all the way back from the town; they say we are witches, necromancers and much worse besides."

"But we have no dealings with the devil…" Hotaru whispered. "They should know that by now; we've been healers for longer than even our own family could recall; healing is not a gift given by a demon…"

"But foresight would be," Rei glared down at her, recalling her sister's words to her the night before. Hotaru looked away, a blush tinting her pale cheeks. "Well just forget about that now, won't we? But this situation does not bode at all well; I fear that we may soon find ourselves in grave danger."  
Hotaru shivered, both mentally and physically; it was times such as these that human coldness proved to be even more biting then the cold of winter, and she hated every moment of it.

* * *

It was still the dead of night when Hotaru found herself being awoken from her slumber. She had been plagued by nightmares of devouring flames, though whether those flames had been wrapped around her dreamself by the devil or the townsfolk, Hotaru had no way of telling.

She sat up, wrapping her tattered blanket tighter around herself to protect somewhat against the cold. The cold… the ice had come inside of their cottage: that never usually happened. It was then that she saw that the fire had died out and Rei, who was lying awake beside the harth, was making no attempt to rekindle it. That was the first sign she got that something was most definitely wrong.

"Rei?" she whispered. "What's going on? Why have you let the fire die?"

She simply shook her head in response then said, "I had to. We have no need for fire here any more."

"But winter can't be passing; it's November…" Hotaru began, then she looked up at her sister, shocked by what she had actually meant. "You mean…"

"We're leaving" Rei sighed, "We have to leave. If we stay here we'll die. I heard them in the town; it's been going on for weeks, since the child's death, just like I thought it would. They want to try us for herasy against the church, for consorting with demons and the like.

"But that doesn't matter, not now at least; we're leaving and they'll never find us."

Hotaru nodded and stood up, "We're leaving right now?"

"Yes; even the watchers will be asleep at this hour, especially with the snow still falling fast," Rei replied. Hotaru wrapped a travelling cloak around her shoulders, and with that they left their cottage for the final time.

* * *

The snow had begun to fall thick and fast soon after they had left their home, and it had yet to show any signs of stopping. Hotaru continued to trudge on through this snowdrift, though it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to keep up with her sister; it was almost as though the cold was sucking the life out of her… She stumbled, nearly landing in the snow, but Rei caught her before she fell.

"Don't worry, 'Taru; there's shelter nearby, come on, it's not much further," Rei said as she tightened her grip on the younger girl. Hotaru simply nodded in reply; it was so cold she felt as though even her voice had died away.

They continued to walk through the ice and snow, soon finding that they had left the village's borders far behind and were drawing closer and closer to the dark forest. Hotaru hoped with all her heart that Rei didn't mean to take her into the forest itself; it would provide shelter from prying eyes but from little else, and they would surely die of cold if nothing else got them beforehand. Her sense of worry grew when Rei dragged her into the forest itself, but soon they stopped.

"We're here," Rei said. Hotaru looked around, trying to find what 'here' was: then she saw it: there was a ruined church there. It had once stood proud in the village itself, but since then the forest had overrun it and made it part of the ever expanding woodland. Hotaru shivered at the sight of it; it must once have been glorius, but now it was a far cry from any such thing. Crows nested in the cracks in its walls while creepers wrapped themselves around it like the limbs of demons come to drag it down with them to Hell. But worst of all were the gravestones, which jutted every here and there from the ground, though many more were fallen where they had once stood.

"Why here?" Hotaru asked, never tearing her gaze away from the ruined church. "Why here of all places?"

"No one will think to look for us here; hardly anyone knows of its existance. Besides, they all think witches will burn if they enter sanctified ground, so it will be safe for us to stay here for a while until the snow lets up."

Hotaru nodded, seeing the logic in this, then, against her better judgement, she followed her sister through the thorns and trees that obscured it, into the church itself.

When Rei opened the doors, Hotaru was not in the least surprised by the sight that met her there. It was as much a ruin on the inside as it was outside, which its once ornate windows now shattered away, the faces of those depicted now barely discernable amongst the ruin. The wooden pews too had rotted away, as had the pulpit at the front of the church. The organ at the front seemed home to a city of insects, covered as it was in a mesh of cobwebs.

Hotaru shivered at the sight of this ruin of grandour, but Rei seemed completely uneffected.

"Come on; let's sleep; we have a long journey ahead of us," Rei said as she lay down on the hard, damp, lichen-laced floor. Hotaru followed her example and soon enough she too had drifted to sleep.

* * *

Rei did not know how long she had slept for, but it was still dark when the music awakened her. The organ, which she had presumed to be dead when she had seen it, was emitting a beautiful tune, one that made Rei almost forget the severity of the situation she was in. Then she noticed the figure at the organ and stood up, the figure in question turning round and getting to its feet as she did so.

"Hino Rei," the figure's voice betrayed the fact that it was a woman. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you. You, the one that I have been sent to help: the 'witch', the misstress of the midnight hour, the one who has been accused of crimes that she never committed."

"Who are you?" Rei asked, suspicous of the woman before her.

"My name is simply Setsuna," came the reply. "And you, as I already know, are Hino Rei."

"How do you know my name? And why, for that matter, are you here to help us, even if what you would claim is truly the case?"

"I am a messenger sent to you from your god," she smiled. "An angel, if you will; I've been sent to help you and your sister, Hino Hotaru. Don't despair, the gods will help you, and I know for a fact that you need this help desparately."

Rei sighed at the truth in that statement, "What must I do?"

"Simply bind youself to me by blood," she replied, extending a dark-skinned hand. "That's all they ask; I know there are no notes on this in the book you call the Bible, but I'm afraid that mortal interpretations of events are almost never accurate."

Rei did not trust this supposed angel one bit, but still she found herself extending her hand: it was almost as though the matter were entirely beyond her control. She felt a sharp stab of pain and cried out as the 'angel' took from her a vial of her blood.

"Thank you, my dear misstress of midnight; we shall meet again soon enough, don't you worry," she laughed slightly then disappeared, leaving Rei to fall to the floor, clutching at a cut that had already somehow healed itself.

"Rei?" whispered a voice, and Rei looked up to see Hotaru gazing down at her. "Who was that?"

"That was a messenger from god," Rei replied. "An angel if you will."

"An angel?" Hotaru frowned. "But I've never known an angel to have eyes the colour of blood."

With that said, Rei realised what she had done; no angel would behave as such, she had bonded herself and her sister to a Fallen, a watcher. She wept, her cries echoing out under the cold light of the moon.

* * *

Quite a distance away from all of this, two figures sat in the centre of the forest itself. They seemed not to notice the cold to any extent, as both still wore but thin cloaks, and neither wore a thing on their feet, though they both appeared grand in their dress, albeit that that kind of grandour had not been seen for over a century.

Both had skin of a shade that put the snow itself to shame, though in all other respects they were opposites. The first was tall and had hair the shade of the midnight sky under which they sat, which contrasted somewhat with her sparkling amethyst eyes; she looked as though a goddess of death. The other was far smaller, her hair being the colour of corn and her eyes the shade of cornflowers; she too would have appeared to be a goddess, though she would have been a mother of life, not a child of death. The first had once gone by the name Ottavia Tomoe, whereas the second was once known as Minako Aino, though they went now simply by 'The Misstress' and 'Minako': their mortal aliesses had been dead for centuries.

"So they've fled," Minako mused, "They fled from unjust persecution just as I did when I was a child."

The Misstress seemed lost in thought, then she spoke at last, "There must be something more afoot, something we have not yet seen; after all, the gods would not have had my daughter reborn simply so that she could burn at the stake. If indeed it was the gods that decreed this at all…"

"We shall help them then," Minako replied. "Even if a demon saw to her rebirth, we should help she and her sister; after all, what are we ourselves but demons in the midst of mortals?"

The Misstress nodded and her eyes clouded over as she lost herself once again to dread of what was soon to come: far away, in a deserted chruch, a young girl screamed as she realised that darkness had tainted her, and the darkness had much work left to do before it slept once more.

* * *

_**(A.N: Thanks for reading. The sequel, Misstress of Mephisto, will hopefully be out soon.)**_


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